Take 2

Unfortunately, my worst fear with my list has come true... list revision! Last March my husband's company filed for bankruptcy. Since then he has been on the job hunt. We knew that relocation might be necessary, but we wanted to stay in Colorado. Good news/Bad news... my husband got a job and we moved to Rancho Cucamonga, CA. No need to adjust your screens... yes the name of our new city is Rancho Cucamonga.

Multiple items on my list involved places or events that were Colorado specific. I am going to try to replace those items with things that are as similar as possible. Drumroll please for the revamped list:

#7 Run the Cherry Creek Sneak. This would have been on 4.25.10. We moved to CA on 4.23.10. New plan- The Playa Del Run 5K on 7.18.2010.

#6 Run the Bolder Boulder. This is on 5.31.10. As much as my hubby wants to fly back to run the race it seems a little impractical. I on the other hand really want to run the Disneyland Half Marathon Weekend. It is the weekend before my birthday and I think it sounds like a lot of fun! I am on the fence between the half marathon and 5K option for this race. 13.1 miles may be more than I can handle... I'll keep you all posted on what I decide.

#11 See a concert at Red Rocks. I wanted to at least go and see the amphitheater before we left but didn't get the chance. Hope to still get to do this one someday. Since this is a venue that people from around the country travel to there is no California equivalent. The Hollywood Bowl is one of the options I'm considering... but for now this goal is taking offers.

#15 Hike a fourteener. Colorado is home to 54 fourteeners. California is home to 13. Apparently it is such a coveted event that you have to apply for a permit months in advance with the date and number of people in your party to be able to hike many of them. So, we may not be hiking an official fourteener but will hike a mountain with 3,000ft elevation gain.

Silver Lining? Completing the list should be easier then ever, especially things like #18 Tour 3 Wineries. Completing the list will also give us a chance to get out and explore our new home.

-K

#4: Look better at 30 than I did at 29

When I first created this goal it was all about weight loss to me; getting back into what I’ve called my “fighting weight,” which is essentially what I weighed when I got married nearly four years ago. But over the last few months I realized it goes deeper than that. It’s about being healthy and it’s about being confident. To me, this was one of those goals that was progressive over the past year. It wasn’t about waking up one day and looking better than I did a year ago, it was about changing my attitude about what looking better involves.

I did lose weight from where I was a year ago. It was about half of what I wanted to lose, but I still lost it. More importantly I think I developed some good habits that are going to stick with me to help me not only keep losing weight and getting healthier, but also keep me off the roller coaster of weight gain that I’ve been on since I was 21.

I also feel like I gained a lot of confidence in myself. My husband helped a lot with this. He constantly reminds me how beautiful and sexy he thinks I am and I’ve occasionally started to believe him. I also found ways to work what I’ve got; the make-up lesson was huge in this.

Another item on my list is to be comfortable in my own skin; it’s not crossed off yet because I’m definitely not there … but the small steps I took to accomplish #4 is absolutely a step in the right direction.

-B

B's back and she's 30

Your eyes are not deceiving you, this is in fact a blog.

Wow. K and I just sucked the last month blogging and updating on our journey. In K’s defense, she had a major life change which I’ll let her chat about … and I got sucked into the vacuum otherwise known as work. But I’m back and hopefully K will be soon too.

So, I’m 30. Yay? It really doesn’t feel any different, but at least I’m no longer afraid of it. I accomplished a lot in the last month, which will soon be blogged about, but I am proud to say that I completed 67% (20) of my goals. Not exactly what I was planning when I created my list, but life really got in the way. I’m going to continue completing goals (and blogging about it) because they were important to me from the start and something I want to follow through on. We’ll now call it the 30 before 31 list.

I’ve got to say though, by far the best part of turning 30 was ringing it in. It seriously lasted two solid weeks thanks in large part to my amazingly wonderful, fabulous friends. The birthday extravaganza started with a birthday surprise that included a limo ride up to a spa in Evergreen, spa treatments, Tattinger, yummy food and dinner with four of my favorite ladies. Amazing!!!!

The following Saturday was the completion of goal #30: celebrate turning 30 in style … and boy did we. I was joined by approximately 50 friends and family members at a wine bar in Lodo for wine, cake and more wine. Combined with a fabu new dress, FMPs and the perfect smokey eye (courtesy of my previous make up appointment), I seriously felt like a million bucks. And I even had my first happy birthday sing along.

The following Monday was the actual birthday and I was surprised by a bottle of Veuve by my coworkers, beautiful roses from my godfather/Uncle Bob, and an amazing home cooked meal by the hubs that included steak and a bottle of bubbly from our trip to Napa.

The celebration wrapped up that Friday following the week of work from hell – seriously, I’m not kidding – at Capital Grille with coworkers for more champagne, Stoli Dolis and cake. Yum!

I honestly couldn’t have celebrated in a more wonderful fashion and am so grateful to have such amazing people in my life. Thank you all!

And despite K’s and my desire to stay anonymous … I just have to post a photo showing how happy I was despite my fear of turning 30.

-B

Get 30 Before 30 Updates by Email

Simply B

I figured that in order to cross off #25: Become a master makeup artist, I needed to meet with Denver's resident makeup master: Michael Moore, owner of Simply Moore for a lesson on makeup mastery. Michael and his endless knowledge certainly didn't disappoint, and while it ended being a pricey goal it was so totally worth it.

But let me back up for a second and say why this was a goal of mine. When I graduated college I treated myself to a makeup lesson at MAC. It was useful and I learned how to use some colors (like purple) that I would never have picked for myself, but made me look fabulous. But I've had the same look for the past seven years and have never felt like I really knew what I was doing. On top of that, the only time my "look" every looked any different was when I did something extreme like my version of a smoky eye. So I wanted to have another lesson with someone who really knew what they were doing in hopes that I would learn how to accent my best features and how to change up my look based on the event I was at.

My lesson with Michael was phenomenal. I learned that I was using the wrong color foundation (no shock there) and eye liner. And I was doing some techniques wrong that were actually counter intuitive to my goals, like trying to make my eyes bigger but using shadow in the wrong places was actually making them look smaller and deeper set. I won't spill all my secrets because everyone should really have their own custom lesson, but I feel so much more knowledgeable and prettier than I did yesterday. I know how to do an everyday look, a work dinner/event/evening look and a party look. And I have a bag upstairs full of new makeup to use. It's really fun to be a girl!

-B

Get 30 Before 30 Updates by Email

Tired and overworked, but the list must go on

Thankfully one of my goals wasn't become more reliable, because I certainly would have failed meeting that one. I can't believe how insanely busy life has been for me the past couple weeks. I've got more work to get done than hours in the day causing me to be pretty sporadic about blogging of late.

Good news is the massive project that I've been working on is scheduled to go live on April 19, which is also the actual day of my big birthday. Perfect timing for me to complete #12: Climb the corporate ladder. But, today's blog is actually about the completion of #7: Make someone else's day. A week ago, yes it's really taken me an entire week to blog about it, I was able to cross off my 10th goal from my list. Yay!

I've mentioned quite a bit on here how much I adore my girlfriends and while I know how much I love them, I'm not sure I do a great job of letting them know how much their friendship means to me. So as part of being able to cross off #7 I sent a card through the mail to each of my closest girlfriends letting them know just that. I hope that it made their days.

The second part of completing #7 I reserved for my coworkers who put up with me and all my loud sighs day after day. Nothing says thank you better than cash, but I'm on a tight budget these days so I said thank you, and hopefully made their day, by bringing them the second best thing: Santiago's breakfast burritos.

Doing each of these things also made my day, which proves the old adage "It's better to give than receive" completely spot on. And because it gave me such a great buzz, I plan to incorporate more random acts of kindness into my life in hopes of making someone else's day a regular occurrence.

-B

Get 30 Before 30 Updates by Email

10 down... 20 to go

Those of you who follow the blog know this is not my first blog about goal #11 (read 30 books). I knew when I made this goal it was going to be a hard one for me to hit. In December I realized that I needed to read 3.25 books per month to hit this goal before September. I panicked slightly and hit the books!

Since then I have read 10 of my 30 books goal and I am pretty damn proud of that. The thing I have loved the most about this goal is not only feeling like I am really accomplishing something, but I have found out how much I really do enjoy reading. Not that every book I have read has been amazing... because believe me it hasn't been, but it's addicting! Similar to crack but better for your brain. This is one goal I am going to make an honest effort to keep up on after I turn 30.

Using the same math I used in December... with 10 books down I need to read 3.33 books per month or 62 pages per day to hit my goal, which means I am on track to hit this one!

-K

Get 30 Before 30 Updates by Email

List rewind: Learn more about wine

K and I started our blog a little late in the game and by the time it launched, I'd already crossed off a couple of my items. Because I'm proud of those accomplishments, and you're probably wondering what I did to cross them off, I wanted to share with all of you. Enjoy!

I'm starting to think that between my posts about cocktails, my love of gin and the copious amounts of champagne I drink all of you are minutes away from staging an intervention. To that I say "Cheers! I love drinking too much to give it up." Case in point is #11: learn more about wine. This was actually the very first goal I crossed off. And it's totally because it was one of my favorites on my list.
 
Like champagne, gin and pretty much all alcohol including moonshine, I love me some wine. It took me a while to get into it, but today it's rare to find one that I don't like. However, despite that love affair I know virtually nothing about it. Varietals? Legs? Tannins? What the hell are we talking about? I answered most of those questions and then some on a May 2009 trip to Napa with the hubby. We spent three glorious days touring vineyards, discovering that we do in fact like Merlot and getting pretty drunk.
 
But it was during all those tours that I learned a lot about grapes, the aging process, the difference between bottling wine and bubbly, and how to really use my palate to discover small nuances between blends and when a wine needs to open up and breathe. One of my favorite experiences was doing a barrel tasting at Pine Ridge. Tasting a young, aging wine before it's maturity was incredible. The trip was also a success because we managed to bring back 12 undamaged bottles of wonderful, amazing wine through airport security. This was by far the most enjoyable goal I've crossed off and although I'm not quite a sommelier ... yet ... am glad that this goal will continue to be a passion of mine until my liver gives out.
 

- B

 
Get 30 Before 30 Updates by Email